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Saturday, December 05, 2009

Full Disclosure:

I was a janitor once. Wore keys on my belt loop and everything. We were living in a place called Fort McMurray, Alberta for a couple of months, trying to rake in some cash to pay for Jon’s final year of undergrad. I specialized in cleaning bathrooms in a government building; Not my first choice of career obviously, but it paid really well and I was helping out a member of Jon’s family. Plus, we were poor and desperate in our first year of marriage, so I did it. The memories will last a lifetime. Luckily I stayed in close contact with my friends and family members through email during that time, so I’ve got documentation of all the best stories. This blog post brought to you by COPY AND PASTE. Enjoy.

[To my friend Christa, on my streamlined routine] First, I spray largeamounts of air freshener, even if it doesn't stink. Then, I scan thearea. Any bits of paper on the floor, I just pick up with my hand (alwaysgloved..I got in trouble the other day for using too many gloves. Like I'mgoing to reuse a pair!) because it's way easier than sweeping it. Next Iget the toilets over and done with, because they're the worst part. Icarefully kick open the door and steal a glance at what’s in the toilet. Ido it this way so that if there is something, I don't have to know what itis. I hold my breath, stare at the ceiling, and feel around with my footfor the flusher. Then, I spray each of the toilet seats with Windex (I useit as all purpose cleaner, even though I'm pretty sure it's just for glass) andsmear it around with a paper towel. I rarely lift the seat to cleanunderneath. That's gross. If it's a men's bathroom, I tackle theurinal first. This is the only time I use something other thanWindex. I use this Clorox stuff because it says "No Scrub" on the front,and I figure that means I can just spray it all over, and flush. Fiveseconds, easy. If the sink has soap on it, I clean it off. If not,it looks clean enough to me. Shine up the fixtures, clean waterspots offmirrors, then check the garbage. I asked the girl who trained me if I'msupposed to change the garbage every day, and she said yes. But if it'snot full, why would I change it? So as far as garbage is concerned, Igenerally just smash it down every day, until it's absolutely necessary tochange it. And...thats about it. Today I was a little more thoroughthough because I was talking to a coworker (this 40 year old foul-mouthedplumber) and he was like "Yeah, all the people before did half-a**ed jobscleaning the bathrooms" and I acted all shocked that someone would do that, thencleaned a little bit better today to make up for it. But really can'tsee it lasting.

[To my mom] The older lady that works there askedme to mop up a "spill" in the stairwell, and to "wear gloves" because she didn'tknow what it was. So I was terrified that it was vomit. I wascreeping around the stairwell so slowly and my little heart was beating sofast. It ended up being what looked like pee. I'd like to think itwasn't, but I'd have rather mopped up pee with my shirt than even see or smellthrow-up.

[To my sister Annie, on unwelcome intruders] So when thegirl who was training me was telling me about the bottom level bathrooms shegoes "now these are the only ones in the building that are unlocked, so you haveto watch out for homeless people when you clean them". She goes on toexplain that if I find clothes or anything hidden under sinks or in trash cans,just to throw them away because it means that someone is trying to live inthere. She says this like it’s perfectly normal, people trying to live inbathrooms. But it seriously happens. The next day I went in to cleanand I checked under the stalls and I see someone's feet in dirty sneakerssitting in the middle stall. So I'm like, well they won't be long, I'lljust start sweeping or whatever, and they'll leave. So I'm in there like 5minutes and this person is not making ANY noise. No rustling of toiletpaper, nothing. It reminded me of someone trying to avoid a T-rex by justbeing really still. So I was like, whatever, I'll go clean the men's roomthen come back. 15 minutes later, same little sneakers in the middlestall. So I went and got security and they kicked her out. That sameday someone reported to security that there was "someone passed out in thebathroom" and the security girl told me later that it was just some lady takinga nap on the floor. She took her boots off and everything.

[To my friend Kellie, on our furniture/apartment situation back inRexburg] Our managers let us keep our stuff in our apartment forfree! Jon went to talk to them about maybe paying a couple hundredless a month if they turn off our amenities, and the girl was like..."no, we canjust turn them off and you can just keep your stuff there for free". Whichis soooo awesome because we were going to move it into storage, then once we gotback there’s no guaranteeing that we'd find another place to live soon, and thenwe'd have to live in bathrooms.

7 comments:

Oh the memories are flooding back to me of doing this same miserable job, in the same dingy building! Those bottom floor bathrooms that don't lock were always the worst to clean from all the homeless people. Yuck. I love your description of how "thorough" you were. . . Ha.

This post really made me laugh. I love that cleaning under the toilet seat is gross.

I don't know where in Tucson you lived but in our building, we had to watch out for homeless people trying to move into the church basement. I had to go early in the morning for Primary sometimes and I was always scared to flip on the lights in case there was a dude there.

Oh LonDa! I remember working for that same company in Lethbridge! (We've almost all been there!) I can totally relate to the homeless incident. I also found feet in one of the stalls, and heard what sounded like a bear tearing apart meat. I got security (or Nate, or Darc or someone), and it was a drunk Native guy snoring in the bathroom. Scared the crap outta me! So I, too, proudly, wore keys and a beeper on my belt!